Embrace Failure and Transform Your Life: Performance Coach Jim Harshaw's Journey

Speaker 2

00:00

 In this episode, we get the chance to hear from Jim harsh, all Junior. Jim was an elite wrestler at the division. One level, he was an All-American and Champion. He's now a performance coach and speaker and is very inspiring person to talk to, for sure. And we talked a lot about mindset and a lot about creating a framework for how to think and how to really become the Version of yourself. We do discuss kind of what growth comes out of failure and how to let go of your attachment to the outcome and how that actually allows you counter-intuitively to show up in the as the best version of yourself and be present and kind of by letting go, you actually can experience a lot more success and really, which Common and a lot of the episodes we have on this show is another tenant is Letting Go and focusing on others and serving others. We talked a lot about Small Business and Entrepreneurship some successes and failures that Jim has had along the way. And so again very much a mindset and inspirational yet still practical episode. So I thoroughly enjoyed this one and I know you're going to love listening to this. Episode.

Speaker 1

01:32

 Welcome to the form adversity. To abundance podcast. Are you an entrepreneur or aspiring entrepreneur? Then this show is for you. Each week, we bring you in Paxil stories of real people who have overcome painful human adversity to create a life of abundance. You are not alone in your struggle, join us, and you will experience the power of true stories and gain practical Knowledge, from Founders, who have turned poverty into prosperity and weakness into wealth. This podcast will encourage you through your health relationship and financial challenges, so you can become the hero in your quest for freedom. Take ownership of the life, you are destined to live turn your adversity into abundance.

Speaker 2

02:25

 Welcome everybody to another episode of the form adversity, to abundance podcast. I am your host Jamie Bateman, and I am honored today to have with us. Jim harshaw Jr. Jim. How are you doing today? Great Jamie. Glad to be here. Yeah, thanks for joining us. I know you're busy guy for the audience out there for the listener. Jim is a, an NCAA division, 1 All-American or was at one point athlete and an internationally recognized tedx speaker, personal performance coach. And I know we're going to get into a lot more of the specifics of what you're up to today. No Jim. You also host the Success Through failure podcast which I think is right in line with my podcast you know. So maybe I shouldn't have even started this. When I should have just thrown you some guests and this is great and I love what you do man this is you know there's a difference, I think between failure and adversity, you know, failure is kind of, certainly you happy that you do or you feel you tried and you failed. But Adversity is sort of maybe sort of more external support, think there's a, yeah, that's all exist, happily absolutely, no. Sounds like a love it. The we have definitely had guests on whom have dealt with adversity that has been a, you know, consequence of nothing within their control. I mean a lot of things in life happens to all of us, right? And then we have had some guests who, you know, had a lot of influence over what actually happened to them as far as the adversity, but Today we're here to chat about your story for the audience out there. Won't you tell us a little bit more briefly as far as who you are today? What you're up to today? Sure. Yeah, I am a personal performance, coach speaker and podcast host live in Charlottesville Virginia. You know, my background is really the wrestling. The, the Genesis of my podcast was my tedx talk which is titled why I teach my children to fail and that's largely about my wrestling career which was mostly failure of until I finally got on the podium. National championships and so wrestling. Background College coaching background. I was the youngest Division. 1 head wrestling coach in the country at one point of on multiple small businesses. And yeah. Now I am personal performance coach and speaker. Yeah, it's perfect, and we will get in into later. As far as you know who your ideal Avatar is who you work with specifically client wise, let us Dive Right In. I know you have talked about this before, but let us dive into the failure. You were talking about give us some insight into your background and, you know, pick it up where you'd like to sure. So, I grew up in Western Pennsylvania, small town, kid small. You know, I was a small kid from a small town and I thought small and, you know, success was kind of always for other people growing up. I always kind of felt that sort of unconsciously, you know? Yeah, I can work real hard, like Mom and Dad. And Dad was a construction worker. Mom was a secretary, and we just, you know, Hard-working people and didn't have a whole lot grown. I have had plenty of love but didn't have a whole lot growing up and, you know, success financial and otherwise abundance that was kind of for other people. You know, we just should be grateful for what we have and not really strive for more take much risk. And, and, and that carried over into my wrestling. My goal is to be a Pennsylvania, high school state champion, never even got out under the podium at the state. A ship's. But I worked hard and, you know that got me into a great school. Got into University of Virginia as a recruited walk-on. I mean, I had good grades not UVA good grades. I mean, it's super hard to get into is the number one ranking Public University in the country. And, so I showed it up at UVA as kind of feeling like a failure and kind of feeling. Like I didn't belong. You know, I have all my teammates were state champions or three time State, Place winners. I didn't do any of those. Academically, you know, I knew that I got even because of wrestling and, you know, really wrestling open the door for me. Sure. And even socially, you know, it's an affluent school and I grew up, you know, blue collar. And it said, I just didn't feel like I fit in and I just remember walking around Universe the university as a freshman thinking. Like, you know, we called first year, you get a for anyone who's out there listening and just walk around thinking, like, You know, I can see how all these guys can find success here. But myself, I don't even know if I belong here, FileMaker starting lineup. If I can cut it, academically here. You know, I kinda is this going to work for me and five years later, I have a master's degree and an undergraduate degree from the number one ranked Public University in the country. I am a three-time ACC Champion. I am a division one on All-American. I am invited to live and train at the Olympic Training. Center is an Olympic hopeful and he Transformation happened here. Wow. And yeah. And this sets me off into getting into coaching and it up, like I said, you got into coaching for about a decade, and add up as the youngest Division. 1 head wrestling coach in the country and starting a family at that point. So I got out of coaching because just the balance thing. And, so I opted to get out of coaching, I started my first business and that was successful. I sold that business and started my next business, I raced him angel Capital and started a technology company built a software and really the goal of that company was to set my family up for success for the Long Haul. Yeah. That's, that's, that's awesome. If I can jump in, because it is so much to unpack there, obviously there's a lot that happened in college for you, you know, with your mindset and other things I am guessing, right? I guess. Let us back up a little bit even further. What was your, why did you, how did you? You come up with the goal of being a state champion before you even, you know, got to college. What was that? Just run of on a whim or how'd you come up with that goal? Well, There were there was only one state champion for my high school ever and, you know, so I would always kind of set my goals high but really I in the summer and the my high school wrestling team wasn't very good. We have had a couple of good guys, but during wasn't all that successful high school team and but in the summertime, I would train in the offseason and I would make the national team, and we would treat him for Pennsylvania. We would travel International championships and I always had some success there. And the guys who I was training with They were, that's what they did. They won state championships. They were on high up on the podium and I thought, well, me too, you know, I don't belong there as well and so that's where I got the idea of being a state champion and then you ask her what about my gold? Being an All-American. So Beth interesting, interesting Rabbit Hole go down here for just a second and then I will yeah kind of finish sort of the trajectory of my path there but so my freshman year I registered it. And you know, this Jamie I am not sure for the listener. If you know in college, you basic have five years to do for years of competition. Dan, it's changing a little bit these days, but by and large it's you can red shirt. And then you have four years of competition. You can take that red shirt, anywhere, and I took that red, I didn't, I did take a wretched wrestling, it's fairly common to take a red shirt, mature, physically, and kind of adjust to the next level of wrestling, and sure. And so, I red shirt at my freshman year and had a respectable season. It and had a winning record in some open tournaments, you know, you can go and compete in these sort of open tournament as you can't compete under the university name, but I had a respectable to season there and my son of my truth. My red shirt freshman year, so my second year in college. A first year competing, I made the starting lineup and I thought my goodness this is amazing and it made the starting lineup and I actually qualified for the national championships which is the first thing you have to do to become an All-American, you have to qualify for the national And where do these four matches and which puts you in the top eight in the country, top 8 in wrestling is All-American, and so I qualify for the national championships as a freshman. So now my goal is, like, get on the podium and I failed that freshman year, and then my the next year, of course, my goal is to be an All-American again, but we had a new assistant coach come in, and we were talking getting to know each other a little bit, and he said, what's your going? I said to be an All-American. He looked at me, funny said, All-American he goes, you know, you know that like there's the top of the podium is national champion. You know, All-American is anywhere on those eight steps below next Champion. He said, why is your goal not to be a national champion? And I thought to myself, I didn't think I was allowed to dream. That think that big hoop. Sure. Stroud to be the best in America. What I do, like that's for other people. That's not for me, that's for other people. And this guy convinced me that I could be a national champion and In this specific guy, his name's John McGovern. And John, here's a funny story. So I was at the national championships that year. So my third year in college my second year competing, right? So it wasn't for years just to my second year as a sophomore competing to get to the national championships and there's 15. And I think 17,000 people is Dan Gables last year. So for anybody look I am sure I am a real sport. You know, Degas kind of on the Mount Rushmore of the greatest coaches of any sport ever write what the Bear Bryant's in the John. And then gets his dang it, Bill last year, it's 1997, it's in Iowa, does place be packed. And I have to wrestle Dan Gables like poster. Child like his daddy, guys, games, Lincoln back Ray v. He's a two-time national champion, three-time final of us. Now, it's a senior year, he's undefeated ranked number one in the country, and I am a nobody from Virginia sophomore and not ranked in my coach John. Gets in my ear and convinces me that I am going to beat Lincoln that Gravy Sauce and basically kind of like a David and Goliath type scene. Oh absolutely David and Goliath. And gotta I stepped onto the mat Jamie and like I knew that I was going to beat Lincoln Mac already well, seven minutes later, I walk off the mat with my tail between my legs. I got my yeah, I got my butt whooped up and down the mat, and it wasn't even close. And I didn't, listen, I know that this is not the Happy Ending Story that the list. His were thinking that they were going to hear. But what happened there was I realized as like after I, you know, sort of, you know, you know, ice down my ego and kind of got over that loss in the locker room. I realized that my only hope my only chance at beating one of the greatest of all time. One of the greatest College wrestlers of all time, my only chance I had a 1 in 1000 Chance by believing that I could beat him. I had maybe a one in 100 chance. That's actually great chance. Sure, you know, that's Really good way. I probably shot I had sure. No, yeah, it doesn't guarantee success, right, but it increases your odds substantially. That's a very good way of putting it. Yeah, there's so much here that I can relate to and it's definitely not a you know not an episode about me. But I went actually went to Johns Hopkins initially to play lacrosse and across similar great lacrosse girl, for sure. And part of it was I couldn't believe I got into be honest with you. I was like how did this happens? But it's in a lot of ways. I felt very similar to how you Describe your, you know, freshman your true freshman year. There were sounds like you, you know, you were good obviously very good at wrestling and obviously smart guy, but maybe not the best wrestler, maybe not the smartest guy, right? And so, it's almost like you would have had an easier road if you'd been, you know, a better athlete and not as good academically or vice versa, I felt very similar words, you know, I made the team, and I was exactly like you said, I was lightly recruited, I, but I was kind of walk-on. I mean it, you know, Wasn't really had to prove it and ended up transferring. And that's a whole different story, but, but the bottom line is, the path to success is not a straight, you know, up into the right path. Are a lot of ups and downs, and we like to keep it real on this show. It's not, it's not all about, you know, rainbows and butterflies and unicorns, whatever. It's a man, there are a lot of ups and downs and I can tell for the listeners unfamiliar with the wrestling in particular, you know, I am more of a team sport. I have more of a team sport background. Wrestlers are just a different breed and, you know, mentally physically. There's just, I don't know, it's there's just now quit if you're going to be, you know if you're going to do, have any level of success with wrestling, you're already Just A Step Above most, most of the population, as far as persistence goes. So anyway. So, okay. So your coach convinces you to think bigger, You do think bigger? You increase your odds of beating this Goliath but it doesn't work out, right? So then what pick it up from there? What happens? Then you're, so I am in the locker room and I had this realization, listen, my only shot at beating that dude was to believe, and, you know, it didn't hurt to believe. So that helped me. So I carried that mindset into my next match and I had to wrestle the number six, ranked wrestler in the country, and maybe them I upset him because I believe because I had this mindset because I realized that, hey, it's okay to believe in yourself. And so this was an epiphany for me. And, so I carried that mindset again and into the next season. And I go through the next season, my junior year and again and I qualify for the national championships. And again, you know, my goal is to be a national champion, not just an All-American, but a national champion and again I fail, and I am in the locker. It seasons's over, I fail. No shot at you. I am done, and I am in a locker room. My face buried in a towel and teager's wondering why can't I do this like, what's wrong with me? Am I not good enough? My not smart enough might not capable enough? Like is it just not in the cards for me? Like do I just not have it, whatever it is. Why I not have that it factor and just so much doubt and I know that you know Jamie you can understand that. And for listeners you got you have on you understand as well as like we have Paul been to every one of us has been there. Maybe you're there right now on some level, and I am thinking to myself, I can't work any harder. I can't run more miles, I can't lift more weights, I can't watch more film, there's not enough, they're not enough hours. In the day to do more like there is no there's no such thing as more. I can't do more. The what is it? What is it that I have to figure out in order to get there, right? Do I have to think you know get lift more or do more squats? I am gonna do more leg. Exercises, like, you learn certain techniques, like, what is it that I have to change with my training to get there? So I dedicated the entire offseason because I got one more year, I got one more year of my life. So I have dedicated this sport since I was six years old, I got one more shot at this thing and I dedicated my offseason to just Traveling. And I trained all year long as it was. But I dedicated this particular summer to working as a camp counselor at College camps, right? So, you know, these high school kids come in and, you know, the campers, and then they, you know, the university might bring in an Olympic gold medalist, or, or national champion coach to be the instructor, and I am the counselor, right? So, I just get to be there, and I am kind of the helper and but our goal is just to be around easily just a few rounds coaches, right? Sure. Yeah. It's nice pick their Brains learn from them and ask them questions, and I am going to solve this freaking problem. Like, whatever it's Jim's missing. Yeah, I go through the entire summer, the entire offseason and I learned some things. But the next season rolls around, and I am sitting in a hotel room in Morgantown West Virginia, and it's the night before the first competition. And I realize, I never figured it out. I never figured out that thing, the killer dragged it out, the secret, that key they Sharon is missing. And At that moment, I gave up on the outcome. I let go of the outcome. Because I realized all I can do is all I can do if I put every ounce of my energy and bandwidth in will into this thing. And if I end up on the podium as the top of the podium, great, if not, I have to be okay with that. Like, if you can't do anymore, yeah, you have to just be okay with that and sugar. And At that moment I gave up on the outcome. And then I let go of my fear of failure. Hmm. And I woke up the next morning and I had the best competition of my lad, the most fun. And, and I performed at my best I had ever performed in my life that next awesome. That's it was so much fun. It was fun. And I went five and ohs, I really feel. There's a tournament. I really went five nolet everybody up and it was like, wow. Like this is, this is great. You know, this is the yeah, you were kind of it and as athletes call. And in his own kind of thing, right? Just flowing. And so you enjoyed the process that whole day, it sounds like, and you had any, how come actually was very good? It's turns out, right? So, okay, so you went on a roll and it's so you won the whole tournament, right? Win the tournament in the rest of my season and goes pretty much the same way. I had some losses as mixed in there showed only two high like high-level wrestlers and but it de los is almost stopped battery. The wins and losses stop talking. I remember there was a particular tournament. We were in Las Vegas and I competed with this guy, and he was beating me for 21 at the end of the first period, and I am like, holy mackerel, like this is not good. He had taken me down twice and it was just dominating me and but again, I held on to the idea of like it doesn't matter. All you can do. You have two more periods or three periods of the wrestling? At the end of the first period went terribly? All you can do is like just keep battling like whether your shirt by three points are down by 3 or up by 10. And on my tate, it's irrelevant. All you can do is just go to war. Go to battle with this guy, loved it, and that's what I did and won the match in. It was, it was fun. It was so fun to just compete. So freely, like this, sure. So I get to the end of the season when another ACC Championship and again, for the fourth time I qualify for the national championships and my life is on the line, you know, as far as I was concerned, this is the most important thing. And how do you have a family? You know, didn't have really the other stuff that we all have in our lives. Now, at this point, like at this point is this is, this is my life. This is your, this is your identity to, I mean, at this point, I guess. Yeah, I can totally control early relate with you. Yeah. So like I get the national championships in. I win my I went three matches now, I have got just one more match. One guy standing between me and the podium on the national championships. Me and a significant goal that I finally that I want to achieve sure in the sport I never Achieved a significant go like this and it's the number four ranked guy in the country from the University of Minnesota, and they were ranked number one team in the country. At that point, there's 15,000 people in the arena and I step onto the mat and it's all on the line. And At that moment I had to continue to give up on the outcome and only focus on everything that I could do because when you focus on the outcome you hold back, you hesitate, you second-guess yourself, doubt. I had to just be free. Just let 17 years of training show up and allow it. Allow it to come out of me. Allow myself to be fully Jim out there on the mat and I did that, and they dominate the match. And I want I got my Raisin. I was an All-American. It was a pivotal moment in my life, that sure that I hang it onto today in terms of the let go of the outcome focus on the process. Absolutely. Well, first of all, congrats, that's fantastic. But yeah, we talked, I have talked on this show before about, it hasn't been framed exactly that way, but just kind of letting go of things you can't control, right? Things that are outside of our control, such as the outcome, I talked about Maybe like International, you know, stop watching the news. I am not saying never pay attention to the news ever, but just letting go of these things that you can control any way such as really the outcome. I mean, you can't control the outcome of a wrestling match or really anything else, but that doesn't mean go to The Other Extreme where you're packing it into you don't care if you win, right? I mean, you're so. So how do you find that? How do you find that balance there? I mean, because you still have that goal and you're still trying to win, right? So you do care about the outcome. A That. So how do you, how do you strike that balance mentally? So Stephen Covey, who wrote Seven Habits of Highly Effective People? I am sure you will love your listeners are familiar with that book, but one of those habits is starting with the end in mind. You start with the end in mind and certainly, in athletics and in business, there's an end, like we have. We know what that goal? Is sure it's challenges, we get so focused on that we forget the process, and we, we You know, the fear of failure. The, the doubt that they can creep in causes us to hesitate and not show up as our best, and it happens in sales presentations. It happens in job, interviews and happens in wrestling matches and lacrosse games. It happens if you focus on the outcome, it versus just fully being present in the moment, in bringing every ounce, in every fiber of your soul, in your being into that moment. Sure. Then You can just, you can perform at your best at me. This is performance psychology one-on-one 101. So you're right. It is this like dichotomy of like, okay, I really, really want this really want to get on the podium at the same time. I had to do the Mind Trick, the mental gymnastics to get myself to let go, and they're different tricks of, for example, you know, one thing that I did was help in this work for me. Everybody has to figure out what it is for themselves. Sure I had my in the biggest man. Matches That season like in the ACC championships and the national championships. I would I had my assistant coach. I said, you have to have a joke ready for me, your goal, your job, your one job is get me to smile as I step on it than that. Cut the tension to get me to smile, to get me to relax, so that I can just go and perform. Any did that, right? So, so that works for me. Sure. When I am giving a speech still these days. I still get nervous. I am a professional. I am sure you could buy, still get butterflies there. And what for me the one thing for me is I really focus on the speaker before me instead of focusing. You know, rehearsing that last deal. You will five minutes before my talk, like rehearsing my lines or reviewing my notes, that had done that 100 times by then right let us that go just focus. Just be in the moment focus on the person before you because you might pick up a tactic or two, you might pick up something you can refer to in your talk to tie it back to that prior speaker. Yes, let go, let go. I love it there. That's really good. I have heard I am not a professional speaker, but I have heard, you know, another tip is to think about the listener, right? And when you're giving this speech, right? And But ultimately, it's the same concept is you're not thinking about yourself, you're not so focused on yourself and that you're caught up in your own fears. And what if this goes wrong, or how am I going to do this? It you put in the Reps, you put in the time, of course, you know, one's suggesting, you have shirked, any of that, you know, responsibility and hard work to get there but Once you're there, let it go. Right and focus on the listener, the person in the audience or focus on the speaker before you. I love that tip. That's really good. I love the idea of focus on the listener and I think you do this because I think your podcasts amazing. I do this before I hit record is like and even before this interview here, yeah, I pause for just a moment and say this is not a, this is not, it's not about Jim. It's not about the story of the town. This is about the listener when I went by Right? When we take the focus off of ourselves and put it on to others, that's when the best version of us, shows up, I just got back from a retreat. I hosted my retreat, just over the past weekend with my clients, my inner circle coaching clients and it was on Limitless, like living, how do we get to living are Limitless lives? Sure. And one of the biggest takeaways there was taking the focus off of us and putting it on to others, you know? You know, how can we serve others? How can we help others? What does the work that we're doing? How does this lift others up? And when we take that Focus off of ourselves and put it external, then that's another one that you just absolutely put down the reins. Now I just finished the book called the second Mountain by David Brooks. That's fantastic. Read and it's have you read it? That was brought up at The Retreat. Oh really, is that right meeting here? That twice in the last two hours. I am writing that one down. Gotta go guys. Brother up. Yeah, but that's really what the book is about. Its the subtitle is a, I think it's a quest for a moral life. Honestly, I didn't fully know what I was getting into when I started reading it, but it's really about your first half of your life. And this is, of course, not. Everyone's life works this way, you know, there are exceptions to every rule, but we're born very kind of self centered self focused, and we all have that inclination always, right? We always still always there. We care about our own self, but really true life is, you know, in purpose and abundance are all found. And when we give it away, we focus on others. And that's his book. Does a fantastic job of kind of detailing that in many different contexts. Whether it's marriage neighborhoods, you know, business nonprofit, just all kinds of ways of giving back but really the lesson in there, is it? It really does come back to you. So like you said in wrestling, you ended up actually doing having better outcomes because you weren't so focused on the outcome. Like and being the best version of yourself as you already said, because you weren't so focused on being the best. The Best version of yourself in a sense, you were just focused on being present and enjoying the journey and working as hard as you know, showing up the way you knew you could, so I love it. So walk us through And of, you know, from college up through today. I know that's more than a year to, but, but I do know that some lessons in there and I know you have a lot of small business experience so maybe touch on that. Well yeah, walk us through kind of the ups and downs for you as far as your own Journey from college until today. Yeah. So after college, I don't usually tell this part of the story but I did take a year when I just traveled. I had a couple of job offers Naval Academy unit Versity Pennsylvania. And as assistant coach come around college and I looked at training you know, going full time to train at the Olympic Training Center and decided you know, I am taking a break I am stepping away from the sport and I gosh I just went on an amazing year of Adventure. I backpacked through Central America for about three months and had all kinds of crazy experiences going through the next. I will do it, right? Guatemala has amazing, a bunch of scuba diving and some amazing hikes and all kinds of crazy Adventures. Then I went to Europe for a month and then I came home Then and then I got a job. Leading Adventure camping tours, I will travel all across the country which is where I met my wife. She was a fellow tour leader. So did that for a year before I got called back to be the assistant coach at the University of Virginia? That's why I started my coaching career coached Ozzy assistant coach at the University of Virginia. And then I was the head coach at Slippery Rock University, which is a smaller School Division, 1 wrestling program division to Athletics, but wrestling opposite up to division, one being kind Sylvania wrestling because so deep in Pennsylvania, it's just culturally and fared in PA, and so I coached it slippery rock. And then I, you know, several years ahead of that I thought to myself like this is life consuming. This is all-consuming, and we wanted to have a family and have an opportunity to move back to Charlottesville. So we did we took out, and so we moved back to Charlottesville started. Our family started in my next business or sort of by first business in which I had a painting. Is this when I was in college in the summer? After that, I started this sort of like a home services company in Charlotte's. Okay, had about ten employees and three crews on the road. They were doing window cleaning & powerwashing, and go like gutter cleaning and Christmas lighting, and that sort of thing, and did that for a few years to our that from scratch grew that and sold it. Okay, so just sorry to cut you off to the shore. At this point, you're just to be clear. You're coaching as well or this the this business pleasure. Yeah, so when I came back to Charlottesville, it was through privately funded position from a large donor. Okay, who brought me back because you wanted, we wanted to be back in Charlottesville at some point, and he wanted to fund this position. Sort of independently funded outside of the University, okay? In wrestling, there's a term called Regional Olympic Training Center. So we had these already, there were these Regional Olympic training centers and I headed up the one that was sort of attached together Rashad any wrestling program. Yeah, so I was coaching sort of somewhat of an assistant coaching role at Virginia, but I was heading up this region Olympic Training Center and then I started a business on the side and that kind of grew to the point where I had to go full time into that. Sure. And then, and then sold that. Yeah, no, I have just a reason I dug in there with a little was because, you know, so many listeners, so many people. And The Listener may be in this position as well. Russell, no pun intended. I didn't even think of that. Until they wrestle with the concept of, you know, starting a side hustle or I hate my job. I should quit now and then start a business or, you know, and of course everyone's path is different and you can see where this is going. But what are your thoughts on that? You know, as far as personally I was able to work part-time for seven years with benefits. And while I grew my real estate investing businesses and then mortgage note investing businesses and Um, so there's a little bit more of a deliberate, you know, long-drawn-out process there and then eventually last in last March, I was able to quit my W2, what are your, what's your advice to somebody out there whose kind of thinking about, starting a side hustle or just quitting their W2 and jumping into starting a small business? Yeah, I actually have a podcast episode that I recorded on this, if you look up success or failure podcast, your job or the you will find, if you Google that and My take is this like you said it depends on where you're at in life and sure I in my at that point in my career how do young family we were able to take a little bit more of a risk than, and so I really encourage you to think about building something on the side. What The nice thing about building like you have done. Like I have gone building a business, while you have a full-time job is, you have the benefits, you have lower stress, and here's the thing that most people don't talk about it forces, you to find the leverage points, you don't have 40, 50, 60 hours a week to put into this thing. Might have 10 or 20 if you can squeeze out 20, sure most. Yeah, so you really have to focus on the high Bridge action items. The things that are going to really move the needle and it forces you to behind, you know, Outsource some things overseas or create systems. You can hire somebody else part-time, or we will get a, get an intern from a university and have them do some of these other sort of smaller tasks, these things, they kind of bog you down these minutiae, you get bogged down into. So I encourage people to really think about how can I undo this knot? Can I do this? But how can I do this? While I still have a full-time job and that's what I do even with this business. And we will get, we will talk about that here. Yeah, I love it. That's, that's really good. You got to be more efficient with your time because you don't have as much free time to devote to this, right? So that you do end up being really focusing on those kind of high level tasks or maybe not high level but High outcome or high. You know. I like I should act high-leverage exactly and I did find your so, your podcast episode is called my last day. How, and why? I quit my job. When there was a lot on the line Success Through her. No, didn't say the number here but I will link to it in the show notes. But so yeah. So talk to us about, okay. So you did the Home Services business which I love by the way because today more and more. It's like everyone thinks they got to have this unbelievably good idea and get you know venture capital and kind of take a grand slam swing at things and I think more and more today, it's these Blue Collar, kind of, you know, tried-and-true businesses that are having a lot of success. A lot of the trades. People are making very good money. So if you can, you know, show up and do what you say you're going to do. I think your odds of success are pretty high. So, curious, you know, why did you choose that type of business? So I had a mentor at the time who was a multi-millionaire and own several businesses, and I was Going to them over coffee one day. And we were just talking about business and I had, I have always had an entrepreneurial streak in me. Sure. And he said, I am going to start a window cleaning business unless you do if you don't do it. I am going to start with a said, look around. He said, every building that you passed every home, you pass hasn't windows. There's a market there, you know, and I did my research and talked to a few folks and a great way to do research on something like this as call a window cleaning company in neighboring towns or towns. You know a whole way across the country if you want and say tell me about this business they're not competitor same, and they people love to share, people, love to share what they know and you know, people love to tell you how good they are whatever, whatever information, so I did that and That's how that started, but that you write and whether other window cleaning businesses. Of course, there were several of them in town and did I think that we could be the best? Absolutely. We were, we were the best, and we everybody got trained, and they had uniforms. And, you know, we were very systematic about how you we did everything from how we answer the phone to how we talk to the customers, to how we clean a window, and the order that we go and put shoe covers on your shoes and, you know, just we just did. Well we were professional and like you mentioned Jamie yeah, just show up like when you go to show up how many contractors and for the listeners, how many times have you experienced with the contractor that they don't show up? When they say they are things take longer? They don't communicate. Well, all of that and I just thought that's not how I operate anyway. So I shouldn't operate this better than anybody, and we did, and we had great reviews and great customer base. Awesome. So you did that for a few years, sold the business and then what's your walk us through the other. This as you have had. Yeah. So the next business I had this idea and I kind of started this while I had the other kind the window cleaning power washing company II, loved the sport of wrestling and I knew that there was that if we could Market the sport we would if we could make it easier for fans to be fans, we could grow the sport and as well as not just wrestling, but a lot of the Olympic sports like the La Crosse is in the Soccers of the word. The sort of cologne on revenues workers, they call them and college. Sure. And, so I created A tool, erase some Angel, Capital. We built a software that really connected all of these social media platforms, which were very fledgling at the time. This is around 2009/2010 where you could send, you know, from the app that we created it, you could type up a post and you know about your, you know, hey, we just beat the crosstown rival. And here are the results and don't forget next week's alumni night. And by the way, here's the link to our fundraising page. Could say, you could type that all up, you could dictate it into your phone, hit send and it would post instantly as a blog post on your website. As a news update on your website was in a minute and then it would automatically post onto Twitter and Facebook. And what else was around back? Evernote, is my space, my space post instantly out to those as well as tax in our text message alert for those who are subscribed. Text message left for your t's and there are sorts of scale with that. So they connected with USA Wrestling, which is the international governing body or the national governing body for wrestling, for the Olympics, and they were on board, and they were promoting and make, we could pull their content feed it down into these, you know, you know, Twitter feeds and whatnot of local programs. There's really I thought was pretty fast in. Am still fascinated with the idea because nobody's quite doing it this way, but we built it. I did you know, this is my first time building a software I had no clue didn't raise enough money, I was just tripping over my feet. The entire way didn't have the right people to sort of guide me and helped me understand like how do you even build a software and I didn't do the building we had enough. So I am sure overseas development team but I didn't know how to coach them through it. I didn't know what a wireframe was all this. So I made so many mistakes along the way but I got my MBA and how's that for sure? Nice and about two years into this thing. Everything we had Revenue, we had customers but not enough Revenue, not enough customers, and we're out of money. And I, we had dead up to our eyeballs. I wasn't spending enough time with my wife, I wasn't spending enough time with my kids. I wasn't working out anymore. I was just, I was a mess. I mean, we didn't know we had a failed business and in a failing marriage, you know, I just I was broken at that point. Okay. And it got to a point where I had to shut it down. So was it just push on that a little bit? Was it now, you know what, you know was that option presented to you or to? How did you know for sure you had to shut it down man? I had pushed and pushed for as long as I could to make the money that we had last. We basically ran out of money and it was just too stressful. You know, we had surely kids at the time and those may be weird to kids at the time and again it was just Now the time had come. Yeah, understood now it's a you know I have I am co-owner of a Loan Servicing Company by Phi Loan Servicing and it's you know it was a start-up we didn't buy the company off the shelf, you know. It's not only do you have to really understand Loan Servicing but you have got to understand a lot more than just that. So you know, the whole startup part of it which comes with all kinds of stressors and you know, it's had its ups And downs, I will be honest. And it's something I don't think entrepreneurs talk about enough if you're trying to start a business from scratch, especially something like a software company that you have never done before, which by the way, this was 2009. I mean, what you talked about now, doesn't sound, you know, it sounds like, you know, it's fairly easy or a lot of celebrities are doing something similar. But right, absolutely one of 14 years ago. That right cutting-edge a me cutting-edge Revolution. And I think we were also A little bit ahead of the schedule. What a little bit ahead of time. Depends on of people weren't quite ready for that. The demand wasn't quite that good dementia, isn't there? Yeah right got it. Okay so you put so much time and money into an effort into this business but ultimately it doesn't work. So how did your what did your family life look like at that point when you scrap the business? What did you do from there? So, I remember literally of can picture one night getting in an argument with my wife about the business and finances. In the stress level in the house is just so high, and she went to bed and I flipped, open my computer sitting on the couch and I got onto Craigslist because that's I guess we're used to go to look for jobs and I just started scrolling on the jobs page and look at there's like jobs for like paperboys and unpaid internships. And I am thinking to myself, like, oh my goodness. Like how do I get? Is this where I am, right, right? This shirt. Really where? I am sure. He will like, you know, All-American wrestler, two degrees from the number one, new Public University in the country. You know, the youngest Division 1 head coach in the country. I had a sex effects successful business already like sure, is this really where I ended up is here at the bottom again. And I was just dejected and I closed my laptop. I set it aside and walked upstairs. And I laid down next to my wife. She was already asleep in bed, I am just laying there. Just ruminating on this thinking to myself, like what was in place in my life when I was performing at my best? Hmm, when I really went from underperformer to Peak performer, like what was there? Because right now, I know they talk. People talk about all these great life lessons. You learn in sports, and I am like man I Either I didn't learn them or I need to figure out what forgot them. Sure got them. You know? And I said you know what was in place, you know what were the things that were in place that and it allowed me to perform through failure to deal with failure to be resilient to create success. That was beyond what I thought was even possible for myself. And then I realized it was like a camera lens. Jamie was like a camera lens coming into Focus, where there were these it was very clearly, those four, there were four things that were in place, OK? This came from a deep Place inside of me, and so I will go through those four things for yeah, whatever, one. Well, as in you have experienced this as a college athlete, you have experiences. Number one. Success was very clear to you like the vision for what success looked like, it was crystal clear and you knew exactly what it looked like. You know for me it was standing on the top of the podium at the national championships. I knew what that looked like. I could imagine what that would feel like and I had a general idea of what I had to do. You had to do to get from here, from here to there, and so I had this, this Vision in, it was based upon my values. Like I probably couldn't have stayed in my core values, like I can't today, but back then I wanted to be tough. I want to be disciplined. I want to be respected. I want to go on his success after wrestling, like so many of my heroes and my mentors did stand. And so that was, that was the first step. I was like, I have to get clear on what success looks like, but inside of me, like, what do I even value? Like, how do I, how do we move forward in my life? If I don't understand like, truly deep down, what I am rooted in, enlist are all of us can sort of throw out a couple of nice words and say. Yeah, these are Things I value. But apparently, I hadn't really done the Deep hard introspective work that I needed to do. So that L is the first step? Yeah. And the second step is this, when I was competing, I had goals that were aligned with the values. Those goals when I was wrestling were Tethered to my values. I didn't know it then, but looking back in hindsight, it could see this. Yeah, most people these days set goals based upon what they see on social media or what they see. You know, the mass media tells them that they should want or, or based on where you see parking your neighbor's driveway. But when you create aligned goals, you become resilient, you become strong. You become clear. You become confident, you become consistent. Hmm. And those were all the things that I was missing. And I had those when I was competing, right? And when you have these aligned goals, these goals that are Really tied to. You can see the tie between your goals and your values. Yeah, it changes the hard work. I always tell people, it's changes the hard work to inspired action. It's not hard work, it's inspired action and I will give you an example, my junior year. And I am going to say this example, and I am going to preface it, put an asterisk by this. By saying, don't try this at home, it's not something I recommend but I stepped onto the scale. One day there's two and a half days before competition and the scale, read 172 pounds. The only problem was my weight class was 150 pounds. I was 22 pounds over two and a half days before. Well hands. And over the course of the. Next two and a half days. I destroyed myself, you know, I wronged every last bit of water that I could get out of my body and running out and I stepped on the scale. Two days later, two and a half days later and I made wait, wow. And I was a skeleton. I was a shell of myself. Probably should have been hospitalized, but I made it and it was a horrible, horrible experience. And again, don't try this at home to be honest in wrestling. You can't even do this anymore because they're staring rules in place and there's hydrogen tests, and all this, which is a good thing now, it's an amazing thing. It's an amazing thing. Yeah. But that was, was it hard work to do that? Yeah, but it was really inspired action. Like I couldn't do that today, you know, I have you know, I am still worried as the workout, I am pretty leaning but like sure I got more to lose. A than I did back then and I couldn't lose 22 pounds just because sure. You know I wouldn't be inspired action for me, right? There's a difference. So anyway, when you have lined both sense you can do these hard things and keep moving forward. Despite any pain and suffering because your vision is this is your values, this is what you want. And so that's the second part, right? And the third piece is this and you again, Jamie, you have experienced all this, like the third piece is I had an And of excellence. And so, being part of Excellence. Yeah, guys. Sookie, you, you were surrounded by people who have been there, who have done this and you have coaches who kicking the rear end if you need a kick or help. You course, correct, if that's what you need, did they help you see your blind spots? They have done it before they have been there before. You're so you have teammates like-minded teammates that you're surrounded by your accountable to them, and they're accountable to you. There's just one So you talked about your assistant coach, you know, your software here that he's he saw your blind spot which was you weren't thinking big enough, you didn't believe in yourself enough. So yes, just so that's critical. I mean our environment is huge so and then so that's number three and then started to push it on a little bit but it's what's the fourth piece? Finally, is, this is you have to have planned to follow through, like love it, you know if I lost a wrestling match on a Friday night, you know, I am sitting in the corner feeling, sorry for myself coach. Comes walking over. Hey Jim, I will see you tomorrow. Morning in the weight room, 8:00 AM be there. Like it or not you're gonna keep marching forward. And in the real world we don't have that a lot of times, right? We, you know, kids get sick or car breaks down or a global pandemic happens. God forbid, or the economy goes in the tank. Like, you have to have a plan, a systematic framework in place to keep you marching forward, even on, or especially on the days in the times when you don't feel like it or you lose Clarity or your Doubting yourself all that, you have to have a plan to follow through. So those are the four steps, love it. That's really good. That's a very good framework. So I do have some rapid fire questions here. Jim if you're ready for them, I am ready. Awesome. What's one thing that people misunderstand about you? They think that I am a highly polished UVA grad one really my roots are man. I love to get dirty 11, Mountain Bike, and Hike and climb and dude. Do hard things and split wood, I am a blue-collar guy at heart, got it. Awesome. If you could go back and give your 18 year old self some advice, what would it be believed? Stop doubting yourself, doubt. The doubters not yourself love that. So good. If you were given ten million dollars tomorrow, what would you do with it? Jim, I would do a lot of work for my parents and family. I would set my kids out for success in terms of college. In sort of payoff. Any like that kind of stuff all in advance and then I would get philanthropic and really give back to the place. That's really what drives me is the philanthropy. I mean, there's a few, I am part of an organization called F3, F3, nation, and I am on the chair of the advisory Council. So giving back, giving back would be very close to my heart, to my church and otherwise fantastic in your business today. What's one challenge that you're facing? There's always that. There's always a challenge. Yeah. Yeah, the challenge is showing people showing enough people that this framework that I just shared with you is transformative. I have clients who are with me for Life, they're lifers because we teach them coach and help them stay on the we called, stay on the path with this framework and it's getting this out into the world. Awesome. So speaking of that, who is who You work with? I mean, what's your kind of Ideal client or Avatar? What's, you know, who do you, who do you work for work? Yeah, I mean the ideal client is, to be honest. Probably in the 35 to 55 year old range, mostly men, but we have women who are in our program as well. I will a lot of folks who have an athletic their athletic minded, right? Whether they were a high school or college athlete, or there a weekend warrior now, and they do Spartan races or marathons or whatever those types of folks who are really Focused goal oriented know. There's another level inside of them, know that, you know, they leave too much on the table. A lot of them are business owners and entrepreneurs, because there's your folks who it's about performance, it's about personal performance to eat what you kill. That's our Solutions are ideal audience. Awesome. So, you work with a lot of business, people entrepreneurs, and but it's more of a kind of personal growth and kind of encouraging them and helping them, coaching them to be the best version of themselves is that it's Affairs. Okay. Yeah, awesome. How about a book or two that you could recommend for my listener? You know, I always go back to one of the first books that I read getting into business was How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie, it has written and I think the 1930s maybe early they sound weird or something like that somewhere. Yeah, somewhere in that timeframe, you go to Barnes and Noble, you will find five copies on the shelves today and there's a reason that's because it's such a Transformer book and that business, that transformed my business as well as my personal life. So that's a, that's a great, absolute no-brainer, another It is built to last. This is written by the same guy who wrote good to great, and I am Colin. So yep. Jim Collins great book about what it really takes for a great company to for a good company to be great? But it's about this division, they have in the values. Really? Lot of that coaching framework that I share with you is proven through that book, love it, fantastic, Jim harshaw, where can our listeners find you online and tell us a little bit more before we wrap up to us. Exactly what you're up to today with your business? Sure you can find me Jim harshaw Junior.com. You can sign up for a free one time coaching call right on that website. You can go there. Jim Harper Jr. To.com slash apply. If you want to find that page directly and grab a Time on my calendar, and we can talk and then, you know, go to the any social media platform. You will find me to just look for Jim harshaw, search for Jim harshaw, or the successful through failure podcast published over 400 episodes with, you know, Navy Seals New York Times. Authors, you know, Tim Ferriss Ken Blanchard Olympic gold medalist, Shannon Miller on and on just world-class performers but that's a passion there as well. So some great episodes again and you can get all the action plans to every single episode. If you go to gym, harsher, Junior.com / action, you can just get a PDF of every single episode. All the action plan. That's awesome. How did you get Tim Ferriss on your show? Grinding it out, hard work. Finding you go, everybody. I truly believe in this world but everybody has their own Unfair advantage and my unfair Advantage with, Tim Ferriss. What it was. He wrestled in high school? I also, you know, obviously my wrestling background. So I put out a tweet and said, hey Tim, if I get 100 people going to retweet this, we come on the show and I got 100 people retweet it. He never responded eventually he did and I, and he came on, that's awesome. Oh you're thinking big right? We're about to wrap up here. But can you think of a quick case study with the based on kind of one of your clients that you can highlight for the Listener? Sure what I do is I help people get really clear on what success looks like for them, kind of what that next thing is for them. A lot of my clients are generally successful there, so I have been neurosurgeon who I work with Dr. Mark McLaughlin. These are nationally renowned neurosurgeon, he's actually a speaker as well, but he had really been hit. Wanted to write a book, and he really needed somebody to push him, help him get clarity on the process and walk him, you know, just It just helped him. Get clear on, not just the goals, but something will be said as micro goals. These are monthly goals. Its is measurable kpis and metrics that we track, we track you all the way along the way and Mark has written an amazing book, and really built a brand around that book. In addition to his neuro surgery practice, he's now well-known author as well. So that's just one of the examples of, you know, somebody who's already performing at a high level, but knows there's more in the tank, there's another gear inside of them. Absolutely, I love it. I put you on the spot, they're so nice. Hey, John, John it. Hey Jim harshaw Jr. Thank you so much for spending your this hour with us. A really appreciate it. Thanks again. Thank you, Jamie. For all you're doing. I love your podcast and love what you're putting out of the world, keep it up. Thanks and to The Listener out there, we appreciate you spending your most valuable resource with us and that is your time. Thanks everyone. Take care. Investors. Have you ever experienced challenging communication or the headache of tracking taxes and insurance meet by Phi a Loan Servicing Company founded by investors for investors with an expert team and best-in-class vendors by Phi will partner with you to service your loan from start to exit, visit by Phi, L s.com to see how you can get started today. 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